Photographer Gillian Allard’s pictures shot during an emotionally charged time in her life.
Afterlife is a series of images that depict a time when Gillian’s own life was going through both a change, but she felt in a state of limbo. The creatures were given to her by someone she fell in love with who used to take part in local pest control on farms. He would butcher the creatures post shoot, and pass them to me in bags, lunch boxes, part frozen – for her to freeze into narratives (Bad Day) defrost, and create poses that reflected emotions (Frozen & Embrace) that at the time she could not verbalise.
As Gillian says, “I used to set up a studio in my living room and under my old hot Bowens I would spend hours fiddling with the often maggoty forms. Looking back at them fills me with so many conflicting feelings. The relationship didn’t last… so much has changed. When I happen upon a dead creature now I feel something more like sorrow, but then I was detached. I realise in hindsight that these unusual love tokens are self-portraits of a different me.
Gillian lives and works as a photographic artist and teacher in Suffolk. She studied Photojournalism at The London College of Printing and achieved a Master of Arts at the Royal College of Art, graduating with a distinction.
A pioneering method developed by photographer Gillian Allard to bind imagery to concrete and other hard surfaces.
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